1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a computer conference system, and more particularly to audio and video conferencing between a computer system having a video phone connected thereto and a remote computer conference system.
2. Related Art
Video phones are known for enabling both video and audio communications between users over a commonly connected telephone line. Examples of video phones are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,400 for Video Telephone issued to Lemelson et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,059 for Conversational Video Phone issued to Cooper-Hart et al. Some video phones are widely used for home and office buildings for identifying visitors outside the door. For example, when a visitor presses a bell button located at the door, a camera installed outside the door captures an image of the visitor, and the video image is transmitted to the video phone installed inside the house or an office building where the video image is restored for a visual display on a monitor. If necessary, interphone may be installed to communicate with the visitor. However, such video phones cannot record messages of visitors when the residents are away from home. In this situation, even if there is an emergency, the visitor cannot contact the resident, and has no way of learning of his whereabout.
Other communication systems that are closely related with those video phones are home automation systems, and video conference systems such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,908 for Video Telephone Conference System issued to Poirier et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,267 for Video Conferencing Network issued to Tompkins et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,076 for Terminal System Having Video Telephone Equipment Cooperating With Computer System issued to Hata et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,374,952 for Video Conferencing System issued to Flohr, U.S. Pat. No. 5,379,280 for Conferencing System For Distributed Switching Network issued to Cotton et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,797 for Schedulable Automatically Configured Video Conferencing System issued to Thompson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,938 for Teleconference Terminal issued to Ohno, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,928 for Computer Teleconferencing Method And Apparatus issued to Jones et al.
For home automation systems which use personal computers for automating home communication electronics, each video phone is connected thereto for the convenience of the user. A personal computer with a camera, a microphone, a monitor, and a speaker are used to establish audio and video conferencing with the video phone. Generally, when a bell rings from the video phone, the home automation system determines whether the personal computer is activated for connection with the video phone to establish video conferencing with the visitor.
For computer conference systems which provide real-time audio, video, and data conferencing between personal computers such as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,076, U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,938, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,928, a conferencing system, a camera, a microphone, a monitor, and a speaker are installed to receive, digitize, and compress analog video and audio information for transmission to a remote conference system via a communications network such as a private switched telephone network (PSTN) and an integrated services digital network (ISDN). Each conference system may generate and transmit video and audio information to the other conferencing system for play on its respective monitor.
Since video phones, which are used for home and office buildings for identifying visitors outside the door, cannot record messages of visitors and nor provide useful information of residents when the residents are away from home, and since home automation systems are unable to remedy these problems, we have noted that there is a need to incorporate a home automation system with a video phone into a computer conference system in order to efficiently and effectively facilitate video and audio communications between the PC user and the visitor.